While visiting my grandmother’s home for her 95th birthday a little evening television surfing brought us to House Hunters International. We observed with fascination as a couple living in New Orleans worked toward their move to the French countryside.

The husband was a professional trumpeter apparently making money on the side as a carpenter. The wife was identified as a dancer of some sort. While we heard the husband pop out a few bars of When the Saints Come Marchin’ In on a couple of occasions, the wife did not provide any sort of evidence of her spinning and twirling chops. They had a young son and seemed to have a friendly community of pals in the Big Easy.

During the episode, we discovered that the wife was French and that was part of the motivation for making the move to France, but the big draw, enthusiastically embraced by the husband, was that “Everything is free there!” He went on to mention health care as an example.

The first thing that comes to mind is that this young fellow needs an immediate short course in Robert Heinlein’s TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch). Someone is paying, my friend. Now, maybe it’s a rich guy. I don’t know. Does the rich guy owe this couple free healthcare? Or then again, maybe they will pay for it after all. Maybe they’ll pay in taxes. Maybe they’ll pay in other ways than money. Maybe they’ll pay with things like time and DMV-style inconvenience.

The second thing that occurs to me is that policymakers in France can’t be very happy with developments like this. A young couple with no certain way to make a living is moving to their country to take advantage of “free” things like healthcare. THAT’S GREAT NEWS!

The word “sustainability” applies to things other than the environment. :-)